Inspiring Quotes from Female Technology Leaders

It used to be that technology was a man’s field- women could busy themselves with the housekeeping and childrearing and leave the math and science to the men. The modern workforce has seen some drastic changes since the days of the doting housewife. Women now dominate 56% of the professional workforce, for the first time in history surpassing the number of men holding professional jobs. While men continue to dominate the technology sphere, the paradigms have largely shifted. Women may only hold 28% of software jobs and 25% of IT jobs, with 11% of executive positions at Fortune 500 companies being held by women and 5% of tech startups owned by women, but they have made significant gains in a relatively short span of time.

Names like Sheryl Sandberg, Virginia Rometty, Marissa Mayer, and Arianna Huffington would not be in circulation today if it were not for the combined efforts of female leaders in business and technology around the world. Women have made some pretty incredible contributions to some of the biggest names in business, so it’s about time they be recognized for their accomplishments. I’ve compiled some of my favorite quotes from women in technology that demonstrate the meaning of “girl power” and remind me why the work I do as a woman IT executive is so important and inspirational. Here are a few that stand out from female tech leaders both past and present, and well-known and less-recognized:

1. “If there is something that you really want to do, if you believe in it…simply keep forging forward because success will come.”– Cassandra Sanford, Co-Founder and CEO of KellyMitchell Group.

2. “A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are for. Sail out to see and do new things.”– Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, U.S. Navy’s oldest active-duty officer at the time of her retirement and developer of the first compiler for a computer programming language. She coined the terms “computer bug” and “debugging.”

3. “Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.” –Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Facebook.

4. “I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of, ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.”

AND

“If you can find something that you’re really passionate about, whether you’re a man or a woman comes a lot less into play. Passion is a gender-neutralizing force.” — Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo since 2012 and Google’s first female engineer.

5. “Most engineers like to proceed from A to B to C in a series of logical steps. I’m the rare engineer who says the answer is obviously Z and we will get on with that while you guys work out how to do all the intermediate steps. It makes me a dangerous person to employ in IT but a useful one.” –Sophie Wilson, designer of the Acorn Micro-Computer and its programming language, BBC BASIC.